Type conversion in PowerShell is used to switch between different types of a value. Types are written between square brackets, in which the type name must be a .NET type, a class, or an enumeration, such as a string, an integer (Int32), and a date (DateTime).
For example, a date may be changed into a string:
PS> [String](Get-Date)
10/27/2016 13:14:32
Or a string may be changed into a date:
PS> [DateTime]"01/01/2016"
01 January 2016 00:00:00
In a similar manner, variables may be assigned a fixed type. To assign a type to a variable, the following notation is used:
[String]$thisString = "some value" [Int]$thisNumber = 2 [DateTime]$date = '01/01/2016'
This adds an argument-type converter attribute to the variable. The presence of this converter is visible using Get-Variable, although the resultant type is not:
PS>...